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The great men, who in France prepared mens minds for the coming revolution, were themselves extreme revolutionists.They recognised no external authority of any kind whatever.Religion, natural science, society, political institutions-everything was subjected to the most unsparing criticism: everything must justify its existence before the judgement-seat of reason or give up existence.It was the time when, as Hegel says, the world stood upon its head; first in the sense that the human head, and the principles arrived at by its thought, claimed to be the basis of all human action and association; but by and by, also, in the wider sense that the reality which was in contradiction to these principles had, in fact, to be turned upside down.Every form of society and government then existing, every old traditional notion was flung into the lumber-room as irrational.The world has hitherto allowed itself to be led solely by prejudices; everything in the past deserved only pity and contempt.Now, for the first time, appeared the light of day, the kingdom of reason; henceforth superstition, injustice, privilege, oppression, were to be superseded by eternal truth, eternal Right, equality based on Nature and the inalienable rights of man.